Citing people familiar with the matter, the newspaper reports the Federal Aviation Administration could move as soon as Friday to lift the three-month grounding.

U.S. and Japanese regulators took all 50 Dreamliners out of service in January after batteries on two of its flights overheated.

In one incident, a lithium-ion battery caught fire on a Japan Airlines flight parked at Boston's Logan Airport. In another, smoke from a battery system on an All Nippon Airways flight in Japan forced an emergency landing.

The Journal says the FAA is expected to announce that Boeing's redesigned lithium-ion batteries are safe. According to the newspaper's sources, the fix includes "various internal enhancements and a new protective metal container [that] will prevent fires and automatically suck smoke or toxic fumes out of the cutting-edge plane."